Quipu
A knotted cord used by the Pueblo Indians to record and transmit information during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680
| A NEWSLETTER PUBLISHED
BY THE NEW MEXICO STATE RECORDS CENTER AND ARCHIVES 1205 Camino Carlos Rey, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505 (505) 476-7900 FAX (505) 476-7901 |
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April 2001
Volume
6.1
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In this issue:
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Jose Villegas, is an Archivist with the State Records Center and Archives. He joined the agency in 1995, and his specialty areas are land and water issues, and the historic film collection. John Martinez, a native of Salt Lake City, earned his BA, Magna Cum Laude, in History with a minor in Spanish from Brigham Young University. After graduation, he attended the University of Texas at Austin and earned an MA degree in United States History with a focus on the Southwest. Valerie Nye, a native of Albuquerque, attended Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, Iowa, where she received a BA in English. She also attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison where she earned a Masters in Library Science with an emphasis in Archival Administration. Paula Flores, is the Administrative Assistant for
the State Records Center Archives and the New Mexico Historical
Records Advisory Board. She has been with the agency for three years
and is also a contributing writer for the Santa Fe New Mexican,
and compiles the Quipu. |
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RESEARCHING NEW MEXICO LAND GRANTS By Jose L. Villegas,
Sr.
Land grants were made to individuals and communities during the Spanish (1598-1821) and Mexican (1821-1846) periods of New Mexico’s history. Because the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 destroyed nearly all of the Spanish documents in New Mexico, we can only be certain of land grants that were made after the Spanish Reconquest of New Mexico in 1693. The two major types of land grants were private grants made to individuals, and communal grants made to groups of individuals for the purpose of establishing settlements. Communal land grants were also made to Pueblos for the lands they inhabited. In 1846 the United States began its occupation of New Mexico, and in 1848 the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo established New Mexico as part of the United States. Article 8 of the treaty stated that “property of every kind now belonging to Mexicans now established there shall be inviolably respected.” In 1854 the U.S. government established the office of the Surveyor General of New Mexico to ascertain “the origin, nature, character, and extent to all claims to lands under the laws, usages, and customs of Spain and Mexico.” These duties included making recommendations to Congress concerning the validity of land grant claims. The Surveyor General considered approximately 180 claims (excluding Pueblo grants) and confirmed 46 of these non-Pueblo grants. For various reasons that are discussed in the many books about land grants, the Surveyor General was largely unsuccessful in confirming the validity of New Mexican land grants. In 1891 the US government established the Court of Private Land Claims to adjudicate land grant claims in New Mexico and other states. Over its thirteen-year history, the Court considered 282 claims to land grants in New Mexico and confirmed 82 of these. Throughout the 20th century legal battles over land grant claims continued in New Mexico’s district courts. In the late 1990s New Mexico’s congressional delegation attempted to pass federal legislation that would establish an entity to reconsider the confirmation of New Mexican land grants and the validity of decisions previously made by the Surveyor General and the Court of Private Land Claims. The beginning of the 21st century has seen the resurgence of interest in the validity of Spanish-and Mexican-period land grant adjudications by the Surveyor General and the Court of Private Land Claims. Concerned that Congress and the courts validated only 25 percent of the total land grant claims in New Mexico, the General Accounting Office (GAO) was asked by Congress to investigate questions concerning the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the procedures by which land grants were adjudicated in New Mexico. The GAO is the investigative arm of Congress and exists to support Congress in meeting its Constitutional responsibilities and to help improve the performance and accountability of the federal government. It has issued its first report, Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: Definition and List of Community Land Grants – Exposure Draft. This report is available as a free download in English and Spanish at http://www.gao.gov. Documents pertinent to the study of land grants are available at the New Mexico State Archives. They are maintained within some of the collections noted below: Spanish Archives of New Mexico I (SANM I). These are also known as the “Land Records of New Mexico” and are a microfilm collection that contains the Surveyor General of New Mexico and the Court of Private Land Claims case files. District Court Records. These are organized by county and contain litigation over land grants. Most of the district court records at the State Archives date from the territorial period (1851-1912). The subject card catalog in the Research Room will usually include references to specific cases that involved land grants. Clark S. Knowlton Collection. Professor Knowlton’s areas of research were the Mexican and Spanish Americans of the Southwest and their loss of ancestral lands. Land Grant Collection. These are Land grant documents donated by various donors. A.A. Jones Papers. The bulk of the collection consists of legal papers, which include land grant case records pertaining to the Maxwell, Preston Beck, Mora, Las Vegas, and Eaton land grants. Elisha V. and Boaz W. Long Papers. The collection consists of Elisha V. and Boaz W. Long's personal, legal, and diplomatic correspondence; legal and business records; manuscripts and reports; clippings; and family papers. Noted subjects include the Anton Chico, Las Vegas, Maxwell, Mora, Los Trigos, Pablo Montoya, and Pablo Melendres land grants. Eugene Fiske Papers. The collection consists primarily of Fiske's professional papers and materials relating to litigation over many New Mexico land grants. The collection also includes a survey, plat, partition, and list of heirs for the Plaza Colorado Land Grant, and testimony of New Mexico territorial governor Donaciano Vigil concerning the Sierra Mosca and Preston Beck, Jr. Land Grants. Napoleon B. Laughlin Papers. The collection consists of case files and a variety of documents such as wills, deeds, and estate records from legal cases handled by Laughlin. Series VII, VIII, IX, and X of the collection consist of documents concerning many New Mexico land grants, including the Las Trampas, Caja del Rio, Piedra Lumbre, Cieneguilla, Truchas, Antonio Martinez, Arroyo Hondo, Rancho del Rio Grande, La Joya de Cevilleta, and Tome land grants. Edward L. Bartlett Papers. The collection consists of Bartlett's official correspondence as Solicitor General of the Territory of New Mexico (1890-1902) and professional papers from his legal practice and other materials on New Mexico land grants, and various political and legal issues in San Juan County and Santa Fe. Albert T. Rogers Family Papers. The bulk of the collection consists of Albert Jr.’s business and legal papers (1898-1956) and land grant case files involving the Maxwell, Preston Beck, Anton Chico, and Mora land grants. Amado Chaves Papers. The collection consists of correspondence, personal papers, manuscripts, genealogies, and clippings and subjects include land grants and titles. The agency will also acquire the working papers of the Guadalupe Hidalgo Task Force. This task force was established by the State of New Mexico to review, monitor, and assist the GAO in its investigation. Finding aids for the above collections may be accessed through the Online Archives of New Mexico at http://elibrary.unm.edu/oanm. The GAO has been collecting public comments on its report. The comment period on the Exposure Draft originally had been scheduled to expire on April 2, 2001. However due to the interest in the issue, the GAO decided to extend the comment period through May 2, 2001. Comments can be made through the GAO’s web page.
SANDOVAL COUNTY RECORDS By Valerie Nye
Twenty newly accessioned volumes from Sandoval County, dating from 1903 to 1929, are now available for researchers visiting the State Records Center and Archives. These records from Sandoval County are especially important, not only because they represent Sandoval County’s earliest history but because they are among the few documents that survived the Sandoval County Courthouse fire on March 29, 1926. The records include deeds, mining records, wills, and guardianship records. Sandoval County was created in 1903 out of the northwest portion of Bernalillo County. The location of Sandoval’s county courthouse was apparently changed several times, but by 1926 it was located in a large home owned by the Don Jose Leandro Perea family in Bernalillo. The home, court dockets, treasurer records, and county clerk documents were reported as losses at the time of the fire. The Albuquerque Morning Journal reported on March 30, 1926 that the courthouse fire was caused by a spark from a defective flue in the building. The Journal also noted that the building was lined with shelves holding records that quickly caught fire and spread the fire throughout the building while county employees were at lunch. Fortunately, the building contained two fireproof safes in the basement. Citizens of Sandoval County dug through the rubble of the adobe building in order to rescue the records held in the basement safes. Due to the protective safes and the efforts of the people of Sandoval County, these records have survived and represent Sandoval County’s earliest years. These records are described in the Sandoval County (N.M.) Records finding aid and are available for research Monday – Friday, 9:00 AM – 4:45 PM.
HISTORICAL RULES DATABASE By John H. Martinez
[Note: Rules promulgated by executive branch agencies must be filed within the New Mexico State Records Center and Archives, and be published in the New Mexico Register, in order to be valid and enforceable. These rules are permanent records. As such, when they are repealed, they are removed from the active rules collection housed in the State Rules Division and transferred to the State Archives.] The New Mexico State Records Center and Archives announces the creation of the Historical Rules Database. This database, currently available only in the State Archives Research Room, provides an easy-to-use interface through which patrons can effectively search the superseded or repealed State rules housed in the State Archives. These rules were filed with the State Rules Division to support State statutes; however, now that they have been replaced or repealed they reside in the Historical Rules Collection at the State Archives. By entering a keyword for an agency name, rule number, or rule description, a patron can quickly find individual rules that match the keyword. For example, if a patron enters the word “milk” for the rule description, the search will show one rule with the description of “Regulations Governing the Retail Sale of Raw Milk,” another with “Pasteurized Milk Ordinance,” and another with “Regulations Governing the Grading and Grade Labeling of Milk And Milk Products.” If the word milk appears anywhere in the rule description, the rule is included in the search result. Patrons can also search by the date a rule was filed with the State. If the patron knows the exact date, that date can be entered and every rule filed on that day will be included in the search result. If the exact date is not known, the search can be expanded to include an entire month or year. The Historical Rules Database does not contain the actual text of the rule, only a brief description and, occasionally, comments regarding the history of the rule. Once a patron finds a rule in a search result, an archivist can use the box and sequence number included in the search result to pull the paper copy from the vault. This new database will improve the efficiency of finding and pulling rules from the Historical Rules Collection. It will enable patrons to rapidly search the approximately 15,000 historical rules and amendments available at the State Archives. During the next year, the Historic Rules Database will be integrated into GENCAT, the database used for all documents in the State Archives, so that a patron can include other archival materials in a search.
NEW MEXICO HISTORICAL RECORDS By Paula Flores
On March 5, 2001, the New Mexico Historical Records Advisory Board met in Santa Fe to award grants to repositories throughout New Mexico that maintain original, historical records. The call for grant proposals was issued in November of 2000, with a submittal deadline of February 1, 2001. The purpose of the Board is to recognize the cultural diversity of the State, and advocate the preservation of, and stimulate access to, its historical records. The Board accepts and reviews grant proposals of statewide scope, with nationwide interest, that relate to its goals and objectives. Eligible applicants are State and local governmental entities and private record repositories. The Board encourages projects that identify, preserve, increase accessibility to, and promote the use of New Mexico’s historical records and documentary sources. These documents represent the invaluable heritage of the State and chronicle important historical developments and provide valuable insight into our State’s and nation’s cultures. The Board has established guidelines to ensure that applicants demonstrate need, financially and programmatically, and show commitment to solving their historical records problems. Projects must also address the funding priorities of the New Mexico Historical Records Advisory Board. The grants listed below were awarded in the 2001 funding cycle. New Mexico Highlands University received $1,491.75 to contract with an archivist to offer advice regarding operation and preservation, with respect to the University Archives. The Santa Fe County Clerk’s Office received $8,500.00 to microfilm all of the marriage records for 1900-1985, and safely store the original books in acid-free boxes, thus preserving them. The New Mexico Jewish Historical Society received $614.00 to rehouse a portion of the Society’s collection—a total of 35 linear feet of materials. The New Mexico Council on Photography received a grant for $8,500.00 to create a pilot program that will lead to a comprehensive directory of photographic collections within New Mexico. New Mexico State University received a total of $8,500.00 to preserve, and make available for research, the Clyde W. Tombaugh papers. This collection of material is extremely important in documenting the history of planetary science in New Mexico. The City of Truth or Consequences received $3,803.00 to preserve and transfer 50,000 pages of historical documents from paper format to microfilm. The Ghost Ranch Conference Center received $6,900.00 to preserve, and make accessible to the public, its collection relating to the history of the Ghost Ranch. The project includes creating finding aids for all its records. The City of Las Cruces was awarded $2,455.00 to stabilize and protect 15 cubic feet of records that are at risk of deterioration. The Lincoln County Historical Society was granted a total of $2,885.00 to re-master 126 existing oral history tapes onto optical disk. The Chaves County Clerk’s Office was awarded $2,550.00 to microfilm the original County plats that date back to 1891. The Tularosa Basin Historical Society received $2,000.00 to convert existing oral histories from tape to audio CD’s. The society has since declined the award. For more information on funding available through the New Mexico Historical Records Advisory Board, please contact Erica Garcia, Grant Administrator, at 476-7936.
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